Friday 25 April 2014

FedEx entrusted with the delivery of T-Rex skeleton

A subsidiary of FedEx Corp., FedEx Custom Critical, has successfully carried out the safe transportation of a rare Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton. The fragile skeleton has travelled from the Museum of Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, located in Washington, D.C.

The fossil, being 65 million years old, is due to be on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History for the next 50 years, as per the terms of its loan with the museum. The skeleton will be the new centrepiece of the dinosaur hall, where it is expected to receive approximately 7 million views annually. Measuring at 38 feet in length and weighing a hefty seven tonnes, the skeleton has been branded "The Nation's T-Rex."

The impressive skeleton travelled from Montana to Washington D.C. within a specially-branded FedEx Custom Critical truck. The trusted truck was driven by a husband and wife team, with the vehicle being equipped with the most recent and advanced technology. Such technology included a GPS system which was programmed with the preferred route. 

The specially designed FedEx truck which transported the
skeleton to the museum in Washington D.C.
The journey of the ancient fossil took a total of 4 days, during which time thorough monitoring was providing. A new proactive system was implemented to help with the successful journey of the skeleton. FedEx were able to oversee the shipment and monitor specifics, such as the temperature, humidity and light exposure whilst it was in transit.

CEO of FedEx Custom Critical, Virginia Albanese, has said: "FedEx Custom Critical has the experience and expertise in delivering some of the world's most precious cargo, and this unique shipment showcases our ability to once again create a perfectly tailored solution for our customer. We are thrilled to have collaborated with the Smithsonian to deliver such an important piece of history to our nation's capital."

The first ever bone of the T-Rex has found by rancher Kathy Wankel in 1988 in the Fort Peck Reservoir. Due to the finding, a specialist team carried out an intense investigation around the surrounding areas. The search resulted in the discovery of 80% of the dinosaur's skeleton, which is considered one of the most preserved and well kept specimens known.

Tuesday 22 April 2014

TNT appoint new CFO

TNT Express has revealed its new Chief Finance Officer. It was announced recently that Maarten Jan de Vries, 52, is to take over the role as CFO for the company. This news comes as a result of previous CFO, Bernard Bot, having stepped down from his role within the past month.

Jan de Vries has previous experience in various positions working at Royal Philips; the newly appointed CFO started work for this company in 1986 as controller of Dutch Sales. More recent roles at Royal Philips for Jan de Vries have included Chief Information Officer, Chief Supply Officer and Divisional CFO. Additionally to this, he was also a member of the Philips management committee between 2007 and 2011.

The new role for Jan de Vries will see him taking control in regards to financial management. His duties will include overseeing the development and expansion of the company in the bid to improve upon its financial performance. Last year saw parcel delivery rivals UPS nearly out run TNT Express in this area.

Jan de Vries will focus the company's attention on its "Outlook" strategy. This particular strategy aims to focus on the company's strengths, such as its European ground services and services for SMEs in particular. The strategy will be driven with an aim to improve on customer service, and in turn product 240 million Euros in performance growth by 2015.

TNT Express' CEO, Tex Gunning, has commented: "I am really happy that we are able to attract yet again such a high calibre executive for the TNT Express management team. Marrten has relevant functional and international experience and will be a great asset to TNT. His capabilities will be essential in the implementation of the "Outlook" strategy."

Wednesday 16 April 2014

DPD to construct new parcel hub in Germany

World renown parcel delivery company, DPD, are to build a brand new distribution hub, costing around 11 million Euros. The new build is to be located within southern Germany in the bid to get closer to its customers within this region. Construction for the new depot has already begun at the Waldeck Business Park situated in Dinkelsbühl.

DPD's new addition will cover an area of 18,000 square metres within a 23,100 square metre site and it anticipated to open during the early months of 2015. The introduction of the new hub will provide up to 90 new job opportunities.

DPD Project Manager, Milad Zadeh, has said: "Closeness to the customer is an important competitive factor for us. Our new distribution centre in Dinkelsbühl will put us in the position to offer our customers in the region even better service."

The new depot will be located in Dinkelsbühl, Germany.
The new facility will be operational in parcel-sorting, and up to 16,500 parcels are expected to be handling on a daily basis. This will be met by the use of a 990 metre conveyor belt, with the aim of initially sorting 5,500 parcels per hour, and up to 7,500 per hour during the second phase.

Employment is said to consist of up to 65 delivery drivers and around 30 depot staff who will oversee daily operations. The newly added depot will be Germany's 76th DPD hub. DPD currently deal with over 2.5 million parcels daily within its international network.

Friday 11 April 2014

USPS to invest in 75,000 package scan devices

The US Postal Service is to invest in advanced scanning technology in a bid to improve upon its track and trace effectiveness in regards to its packages. The new devices, referred to as Mobile Delivery Devices, have been provided by supplier Honeywell, and are expected to use various mobile communication networks to provide up-to-date and real-time tracking for packages.
Supplier Honeywell are providing USPS with
the new devices
The new devices will provide access to local USPS wireless communications as well as local USPS internal wired networks. They will collect data which will be communicated to local delivery offices. With plans to introduce up to 75,000 of the new devices, USPS are said to be distributing these across to city and rural carriers from later this year.

The deployment of the devices is set to take place over two phases. The first phase will see the devices introduced in major metropolitan areas and those areas where Sunday deliveries are available. The second phase will see further devices deployed in 2015.

The postal company has claimed the new technology will be able to support real-time scanning needs for its postal productions. Honeywell's devices are also said to exceed expectations in that data will not need to be input manually as often.

USPS has been gradually improving its scanning capabilities over past years. It is hoped that the introduction of this new advanced technology will help enhance its shipping business future.

Tuesday 8 April 2014

Selling UK postcode database with Royal Mail was a mistake, admit MPs

The government's choice to include Royal Mail's national database comprised of addresses within the company's privatisation has been blasted by a committee of Britain's House of Commons.
A report has been issued by the Public Accounts Committee, illustrating the access to data, in which it was said that the Postcode Address File, otherwise known as PAF, should have been saved as a public data set and considered as a "national asset, available free to all, for the benefit of the public and the widest benefit of the UK economy."

Evidence in its review showed uncertainty in both the government's and Royal Mail's assurances that the PAF will carry on to be made readily available to small businesses, said MPs. The Committee has said that removing the PAF, in a bid to improve Royal Mail's share price, would prevent economic modernisation and innovation, as well as growth, within the UK.

The MPs have admitted that "the sale of the PAF with the Royal Mail was a mistake." They went on to claim that "the Government must never make a similar mistake", and advised they were aware that "public access to public sector data must never be sold or given away again."

Royal Mail announced in July 2013 that its PAF would be available and accessible free for the use by independent, small businesses for one year. It has been said that MPs were informed by open data company, FlyingBinary, that the free year of access would be "no help". This was due to the amount of months it could take to reel in a product to market solely dependent on PAF data.

The Committee were informed by ministers that the PAF was an "integral part" of Royal Mail. "It is a fundamental operating asset on which the business depends. It is the Royal Mail that collects the data and makes sure it is up to date", commented Business Minister, Michael Fallon. Fallon also said: "Royal Mail incurs considerable costs in collecting and maintaining this data and keeping it up to date. It is only reasonable that they should be able to recover some of those costs from the companies that use this data."

Monday 7 April 2014

TNT say goodbye to CFO Bernard Bot

TNT Express has recently announced its start in finding a replacement for Bernard Bot, Chief Financial Officer. The search will begin as it surfaced that Bot, who acted as Chief Executive from October 2012 until June 2013, said he will not be taking part in the re-election within the CFO position at the Annual General Meeting, held at TNT's headquarters outside of Amsterdam next week.

Prior to joining TNT in 2005, Bot previously worked for McKinsey & Company for 13 years. It was here that he acted in serving their clients in regards to the post, logistics and transport sectors.

Bernard Bot
Bot joined TNT as Group Director of Business Control, then becoming acting CFO from August 2010 through to the company's de-merger in 2011.

Following the independence of TNT's postal side, which became PostNL, Bot was made CFO of the Express side. Bot was deeply involved in the ongoing business plan that prepared to improve and develop the company's financial performance at TNT Express; this comes as a follow up to the previous conflicts it had faced since the decision to de-merge.

Bot also stood in as interim Chief Executive at TNT Express when CEO Marie-Christine Lombard decided to leave the company. Lombard's decision came as a surprise to the company; her decision to move on was said to have been due to an anticipated takeover of the company by UPS. However, this takeover subsequently fell through and did not take place. Bot's takeover remained until CEO Tex Gunning replaced him in June 2013.

Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Antony Burgmans, said: "Bernard played an important role in the development of TNT Express. He built a strong global finance organisation and initiated the turnaround of the company through the Deliver! programme. For this, he deserves our gratitude and we wish Bernard all the best for the future."

While TNT Express has began to look for his successor, it is yet to be confirmed when Bot's departure date will be.

Expansion sees FedEx Express open four new stations in Spain

FedEx Express is due to open four new stations, three to be situated within the Basque region of Spain with the fourth being on the south-east coast in Alicante. The European expansion will increase movement within their Spanish network, creating approximately 32 new job roles throughout the additional stations. This growth will expand on the 90 new stations FedEx has already positioned within Europe.

The courier company has said the Basque country is depicted as one of the most constantly developing areas of Spain with regards to business interest. There are around 158,000 businesses positioned in this area, in places such as San Sebastian and Vitoria. The expanding network will give customers within this area the opportunity to ship worldwide with expected transit times of one or two working days.

FedEx Express are due to create job opportunities in their
expansion plans.
There is now a demand in the export market for local businesses since the Spanish economy has started to recover. FedEx can see this increasing demand, seeing that the Basque region reached 13.8 billion Euros last year, a 5.4% increase from the previous year. FedEx Express began operating with Spain back in 1989 and now has employed approximately 445 people there. With their local headquarters based in Madrid, FedEx has a gateway at Barajas Airport which links to its main European hub at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport.

FedEx will be creating 12 new jobs within their Alicante station where more than 129,000 businesses are currently based. Businesses based in this area are in industries such as textiles, shoe, marble and toy manufacturing. Within the first eight months of 2013, exports from this particular area were said to have been valued at a staggering three billion Euros.

Senior Manager of Operations for FedEx Express Spain, Ian Silverton, has spoken of how the company will be offering its expertise to local Spanish businesses: “Now we are even better placed to give our customers the local expertise they need to go grow their businesses globally.”


Silverton has also commented on the advantages in opening stations in the Basque region and Alicante: “The Basque business community has made a name for itself for driving research and innovation, creating a thriving business community with a strong entrepreneurial spirit.” He also described Alicante as being “known for its strong industrial research and development.”